Challenging the Leader

The U.S. doctor does not lack for professional reading fare. More than 2,000 medical journals are available for the asking, and of these, the practicing physician gets at least 30 magazines, whether he asks for them or not. In the face of such gratuitous service, it might seem the height of foolhardiness to launch a new medical magazine. But that was precisely what Maxwell M. Geffen did four years ago.

A lifetime in the printing business had taught Geffen something of the profit potential involved. Nor was Geffen unaware of the fact that among magazines addressed to a strictly defined readership, the Journal of the American Medical Association consistently ranks at the top in advertising income.

Cordial Reception. Medical World News, Geffen's new magazine, could not have chosen a less auspicious month than April 1960 to make its debut. The Kefauver investigation of overpricing in the drug industry had only recently opened in Washington. And although Geffen recognized his total dependence on drug advertisers, he also recognized the need for editorial independence. In issue after issue, the testimony brought out by the Kefauver committee ran in the fledgling MWN side by side with pharmaceutical ads.

This very independence helped assure a cordial reception from doctors. So did Geffen's decision to borrow a trick or two from consumer magazines. Originally subtitled "The Newsmagazine of Medicine," MWN offered its contents from the start in readily digestible prose. Unlike JAMA, which is written by doctors, MWN is produced by professional journalists. Today it maintains bureaus in Washington, Chicago, Boston and Paris, and a full-time editorial staff of 51, under Executive Editor William H. White, 40, all with previous experience in medical journalism. This is also true of Editor Morris Fishbein, M.D., a personal friend of Publisher Geffen and longtime JAMA editor until the A.M.A. forced him out after a policy dispute in 1949.

Leading the Way. Last summer MWN passed JAMA in circulation, 230,000 to 205,000--an easy enough trick, to be sure, in a magazine distributed free. By adding interns, resident physicians, medical school faculties and certain hospital staffers to its circulation list, MWN gained 70,000 new readers in one swoop. This month, having logged an ad revenue of $7,000,000 in 1964--within striking distance of JAMA--MWN was encouraged to switch from biweekly to weekly publication.

Publisher Geffen, 68, takes much satisfaction from the fact that a few years ago JAMA began stitching a new section, "Medical News," into each issue. JAMA might well have done so anyway, without the pressure of MWN's competition, but Geffen chooses to think otherwise. "If JAMA has noticeably improved since 1960," he said last week, "it's because we led the way."

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